


DVD Commentary: The Pen Is A Metaphor For His-

by satbiym



Series: DVD Commentary [1]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Alice in Wonderland Fusion, DVD Commentary, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-22
Updated: 2020-07-22
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:53:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25447177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/satbiym/pseuds/satbiym
Summary: A Behind-the-scenes look and analysis of myYuri!!! On Ice meets Alice in Wonderland fic
Relationships: Katsuki Yuuri/Victor Nikiforov
Series: DVD Commentary [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1843132
Comments: 1
Kudos: 4





	DVD Commentary: The Pen Is A Metaphor For His-

**Author's Note:**

> Hello,
> 
> This is basically a DVD commentary of my fic - [The Pen Is A Metaphor For His-](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18019901)
> 
> This was a really fun writing exercise and helped me love this fic even more than before. To all the writers out there, it's interesting, how much you come to appreciate your mind and writing when you treat it with as much respect as you would other media. 
> 
> Like, we spend hours and hours writing meta for shows and books, have you ever considered doing so for your own work? 2.6k words and an analysis longer than the actual original source material, later... I would recommend this, I feel so encouraged and cleansed right now.
> 
> Some thoughts before you continue...  
> \- I don’t want this to be a “this is what that part meant” piece, I loved hearing about what this piece meant to each person who read it and projected their life and experiences onto it and made it into something unique that was true for them. So, it’ll be more about themes and intentions and my take on it as the author. But it doesn’t have to mean anything, #the-author-is-dead.  
> \- This piece helped me understand a lot about myself and I am still trying to process a lot of the truths I didn’t realize I knew because of this fic. This is my attempt at parsing it out loud for your entertainment.
> 
> Happy Reading!

##  Setting - Alice in Wonderland

To be honest, I read Alice in Wonderland a long, long time ago and barely remember anything but the most salient characters, but a Wikipedia spiral and some refresher readings about the themes and riddles present in the book really helped me realize that this was exactly what I wanted to write about, everything else be damned.

My favourite thing about Alice in Wonderland is the absurdity. I truly believe that in absurdity lies the truth and that absurdity allows readers and the characters to experience the truth of their reality while still being disconnected from the consequences of that experience.

It might be a case of people overthinking the novel, but considering Lewis Carroll was a mathematician and the book had a lot of references to mathematical principles, and that there is real evidence of parodying actual rhymes, I think this book was actually explicitly veiled in metaphors.

Especially considering he worked with ciphers, wherein you hide text in plain sight, I think the hidden meanings are there because of explicit intent.

And maybe some things were made nonsensical on purpose, like the raven riddle, to add to the fantastical atmosphere of the novel; in absurdity lies truth, and I think that's what happened. Plus, the ambiguity of the absurdity allows for multiple interpretations of the original text.

##  Theme - Victor’s growth

As mentioned in the fic notes:

This fic is an exploration of Victor and his growth, more specifically:

  1. Victor and his fear of growing old and having to either retire or be over staged by the younger skaters, because… who - and what - is Victor Nikiforov without his skating? 
  2. "You've lost your muchness, Victor" someone says, and Victor's like "Yes, that tends to happen with clinical depression, asshole”



and doing both through the power of metaphor, music and dance~

##  The Title

ha, the title is really interesting and made me cackle with delight.

Two things about the title:

  1. The pen is a metaphor for his _inspiration_. 😉
  2. The last word being cut off is to evoke a sense of a gasp caught in your throat. 



It was inspired in large part because of a  [YOI version of a softer world comic](https://www.google.com/url?q=https://satbiym.tumblr.com/post/172414487603/aharsherworld-you-have-to-make-the-impossible&sa=D&ust=1595438255185000&usg=AOvVaw0rxOxlw5GGH1yXq7RbCuv8)

and yes, i could have gone with a more staid “Victor in Wonderland,” but I found that doing things that make you cackle with delight keeps the writing spirit alive and fed well.

Plus, this felt more On Brand.

##  Summary

I have found I really like using formatting styles to display levels of thinking (like subconscious/second level thinking) or for reactionary thinking (when you just feel rather than think something explicitly).

I first used it in my YOI Veela AU, like so:

and I liked that the "(!!!)" really injected some excitement/energy into the scene, while also informing the reader of exactly how Victor felt, without having to explicitly say it. 

So, using "rabbit-person (?)" is, I’ve found, a really efficient way to communicate the uncertainty in the POV character's mind and how the word is just a placeholder rather than a strict label.

Plus! I liked how it also automatically introduces this kind of mystery and tension in the reader’s mind and automatically made them more interested in reading to see if the label was true or not.

It’s just… neat.

##  Fic Content

### Bookending

I really enjoy bookending as a technique to show a character’s growth and development and/or - as is the case here - different ways of interpreting something.

Beginning:

End:

I liked that this riddle doesn’t have a canonical answer, so I chose 2 answers which best suited my needs.

The first one brings to mind an almost destructive, dog eat dog, feeling to the reader. Where a raven eats worms, a worm eats a desk, ergo, a raven eats a desk. It's about being high on the food chain, similar to the pressure of ice-skating competitions.

This represents Victor’s view on skating, competition and inspiration at the beginning of YOI. Where it feels like he has to keep putting one foot in front of the other, to just keep moving forward, even though he doesn’t know where he's moving to, or even, what he’s moving _for_.

And the second is Victor at the end of YOI, representing the theme of History Makers - we were born to make history . I am here, consciously moving forward, to leave my mark on history. I am here to leave it all on the ice and view that choice as an act of love.

> "There's a place you just can't reach unless you have a dream too large to bear alone. We call everything on the ice "love." - Yuri!!! on Ice, last line

###  Notable Excerpts

⛸️ 

I was inspired by  [Shakespeare’s “rough winds do shake the darling buds of May”](https://www.google.com/url?q=https://poets.org/poem/shall-i-compare-thee-summers-day-sonnet-18&sa=D&ust=1595438255188000&usg=AOvVaw1rOd1vsRdrX7txDbR4-_Du) for the above description.

And if you’re familiar with the line, it’s meant to evoke the sense that rough winds are shaking the darling buds of May (cough, cough, Victor) in this scene.

Personally, this phrase has always been very comforting for me during my own struggles with depression and anxiety. Because, yes, rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, but that doesn’t mean that shaking you up is all there is to the wind or that being shaken is all that you are.

And it’s okay if the budding Spring flowers have to fall, the Fall will take its place and eventually, Spring will come again. Nothing beautiful in nature ever stays but that doesn’t mean it won’t ever come back, born anew.

The rest of the excerpt is meant to evoke going through the motions without knowing why you’re doing so.

Victor here is writing about inspiration and movement and bright, beautiful things that evoke pleasure and will surprise and make the viewer feel things.

… all the while those things are absent from his own life. He’s ignoring life and love for the sake of _writing_ about life and love. 

The theme is how if you want to write about love and life, you need to get out and allow yourself to open up to love and life.

This scene is in direct contrast with the rest of the story wherein he experiences those emotions he’s trying to write about, but first-hand.

⛸️ 

This is to evoke that sense of audience as scavengers, out to rip and take more than Victor can freely give.

Until giving is all that can remember, instead of the natural give and take that a healthy performer would feel.

⛸️ 

… yes, this wisdom is inspired by a True Story™ 

I really enjoyed being able to write absurdist prose and being able to evoke this sense of, _wow Victor existed before this story and had a Life and Stories before this one_.

⛸️

Sometimes you write something that makes you feel like you’ve unlocked a new layer of meaning to Life, but still aren’t able to at that point explain why and how exactly you did that or even what it meant.

I still cannot explain it, but I know I did unlock something that maybe I’ll never be able to explain in words, but only be able to feel:

> No matter how fast he ran, the rabbit-person managed to keep _just_ out of reach, enough that Victor was left stumbling after his back, forever chasing, never meeting.

I like writing.

It’s a socially acceptable way to thrust your hand into your chest, grab your still beating heart and shove it at people, like, _here, feel it, do you understand now????_

(If you’ve watched Once Upon a Time, that is the one imagery that stuck with me from it)

⛸️ 

Inspiration means so much to Victor. Being able to surprise the audience is the only way he is able to feel anything anymore, to have meaning and - even if it is second-hand and even if he is playing pretend - feel love and life.

That he just throws himself, heedless of the consequences, to get back the one thing that gives him any sense of meaning; desperate and clinging to what the pen represents in his gray and still life.

The pen is the potentiality of vibrance and movement. The pen is Victor at his best and brightest and most lovable.

It is to him, to an extent, the thing that makes him special, worth keeping around, worth loving.

_ What remains once that is gone? _

⛸️ 

and now, it begins, Victor leaves behind his stagnant and colorless life and throws himself into a life of color and movement.

Color, his eyes still cannot still handle (after having been without for so long) and is not yet sure how to process, _is this color even a good thing? Is he good enough to have it in his life? Does he deserve it?_

(same energy as Plato’s allegory of cave)

⛸️

Sigh.

_ Oh, Victor. _

I wanted this piece to be very... hazy, like your head is underwater. I wanted things to be just a hop and skip out of grasp, like Victor knows this is important to him, but he doesn't know why. I wanted it to have that nonsensical-Alice-in-Wonderland kind of ambiguity, ya know?

Plus, I think Victor, with his bad memory, might actually recognize this feeling of chasing and chasing and never quite meeting and understanding.

I think one of the themes in this is just that - do things that impact us leave an intangible imprint in our heart _because_ of their content, or because of the feelings they evoke in us?

Like, the first time you see a bunny, and later when you think about it - is it the sense of wonder you are remembering or the animal itself? or both?

I think Victor is very intuitive and instinctive, and when he knows, he knows; thus dropping everything and flying out to Hasetsu.

And one of my favourite people commented on this scene:

> Poor Victor. Been on the ice so long it starts to feel not so good to his subconscious mind.

⛸️

_ The door was too high and the ice too slippery. _

This line still manages to fill me with confusing, conflicting emotions. 

Victor-

The thing about Victor is how hard and how much he tries.

He tries and tires and jumps and runs and jumps again and tries every possible way to make his hopes into the reality he wishes they were.

but the thing about neurodivergence is how much you have to fight your own body and life itself to get what you need from it. That sometimes, life doesn’t care how much you try or jump or run or jump-run-jump, sometimes, things are just gray.

But.

You gotta try, man.

You just gotta try.

Because one day, one petal at a time, the wind will recede because you will it so and hues and shades of color will start to filter in and you will be an inch taller and be able to find your feet on previously slippery ice.

Until then, you just gotta keep trying. 

⛸️

yeah I cried when I wrote this part.

It speaks for itself.

Onto the next!

⛸️

So, it’s funny but I’ve always equated lack of color and vibrancy with depression.

I remember, when I was experiencing the worst of my own battle with depression, I remember how stale and colourless life had felt.

Stagnant and gray and without movement. 

It’s interesting, because the textbook definition of being alive is being able to move. My personal experience with this illness really drove home this point, because the thing that hurt me the most was the inability to move  and feel color.

It was almost as if color was something I had imagined as a child, something that I had now outgrown.

And so I did what I could and injected color the only way I artificially could. I coloured the lower half of my waist-length hair a poppy, bright bubblegum pink.

It helped.

The color, the movement, the choice - helped.

Suddenly people - the old and the young - were staring at me, some with stars in their eyes, others with deep curiosity and others with scorn, but none for the reason that I was, _and felt and acted_ , colourless.

⛸️

It’s like…

when your back is against the wall and you are fighting and clawing and bleeding your way just to stay afloat, it helps to have a symbol, a representation of the potentiality of a better life. 

So, you tell yourself, _if I could just get-win-be this,  it will all be alright. I just need to hold on until then. _

Symbols help.

Symbols are a sign that you are still fighting back and trying to claim it back for yourself.

⛸️

My favourite comment about this part was:

> _ ‘(oh , he had hair)’ _
> 
> For now.

e x p o s e h i m

⛸️

This new world...

The new colors, they hurt his eyes and he is unsure and when you’ve been surrounded by gray for so long, it’s easy to think that’s all there is. But after this color leaves and gray returns - what then? _Can_ you return to a now unfulfilling and lifeless life once you’ve tasted what it truly means to behold the full spectrum of living?

But Victor is ready to barter away the uncertainty and possibilities of the color and movement if that means getting back the certain security of the pen and the life he once had.

( _When did potential become such a scary thing?_

When did Victor become unsure if he could turn it into reality?)

⛸️

:lies down:

⛸️

:takes a deep breath:

:Ben Wyatt voice: it’s all about the dancing even when you don’t know how and meeting each other halfway

⛸️

:ben wyatt voice, while sobbing: it’s all about the character growth

> “He can keep the pen.” Victor said, soft and calm, “It only existed for people to dance to, and I cannot dance. It’s better; less selfish for him to have it.”

This line was very special to me, but I am not entirely sure why, tbh.

It's a way for Victor to realize what that pen meant to him and why keeping a pen just wasn't enough. Inspiration shouldn't be kept captive, it's a verb, it's an act, it's not satisfied with existence alone.

And Victor realizes, he too is no longer satisfied with those things either.

⛸️

While I don't think love cures all. 

It helps. A lot. And it's like when Yuuri said "I need you to believe in me more than I do!" and that for me is it. 

In the end the music has come to a stop, but his friends and Yuuri are still there, smiling back at him.

⛸️

🙏🏼😭

##  Ending Thoughts

At the end of the day, art is not meant to exist in a vacuum not be tethered to the intentions of its creation.

So.

Now, I ask you…

What are your thoughts?

**Author's Note:**

> So!
> 
> I am really interested in hearing your thoughts as well! So, please feel free to hit me up on my social media or the comments below!
> 
> I am on...  
> [Tumblr](http://satbiym.tumblr.com), [Twitter](https://twitter.com/satbiym),[Pillowfort](https://www.pillowfort.io/satbiym) or even Discord if you're so inclined!
> 
> **IMPORTANT NOTE**  
>  I noticed that many of you might not have AO3 accounts and might not be able to subscribe to my fics for updates OR want some behind the scenes previews.  
> So! if you'd like to be updated whenever I update next/get behind the scenes about my other fics please fill out **[this form](https://forms.gle/fv5mjLT48HT9wyuw8)** and I'll email you when I do (Along with many BTS and exciting surprises about things I'm working on!)


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